Sales of books based on paper as the medium has been carried out widely from the past. In publishing a book, a predetermined number of copies corresponding to the expected sales of that book are printed and distributed at bookshops and the like by the distribution system. The book is placed at the store to be sold. These books become the stock at each bookshop until it is sold. When the book is not sold within a predetermined period of time, the book may be returned to the publisher that is the origin of the sales.
It is difficult for the publisher to accurately grasp the number of books sold and the number of books in stock at each bookshop. A copyright royalty fee corresponding to a rough estimate of the number of sold copies indicated by the publisher was paid to the copyright holder. Therefore, the proper copyright royalty fee was not always paid to the copyright holder.
Recently, copyrightable objects such as books and the like have been converted into electronic form to be distributed on the market in a manner similar to that of software. Since the process of printing out the copyrighted work is not carried out, it has become difficult for the copyright holder to identify the number of copies sold. It is now becoming more difficult for the copyright holder to obtain the proper copyright royalty fee.
The invention in Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 5-89360 discloses technique related thereto. The automatic sales system of the software disclosed in this Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 5-89360 includes an IC (Integrated Circuit) memory card with a ROM (Read Only Memory) storing the card ID (identification) number and user ID number and a readable/writable RAM (random access memory), an automatic vending device incorporating a telephone line and a storage device in which a plurality of software are stored, and an approval center having a telephone line connected to assign an approval number of a copyright. A purchaser selects the software he/she wishes to purchase and obtains an approval number from the approval center through the telephone line, whereby the automatic vending device loads the software in the storage device into the RAM of the IC memory card.
By centralizing the amount of sold software through the approval center, the copyright holder can identify the number of software sold. However, there is a problem from the standpoint of security control since the approval center and the automatic vending device are connected via a telephone line. In other words, there is a possibility that the sales information and the like may leak out by illegal access from the automatic vending machine connected to the telephone line.
In order to prevent the software from being obtained illegally from the automatic vending device, the card ID number and the user's ID number are stored in the IC memory card. In the case where a user purchases software from the automatic vending device, information of that purchase will remain. A problem may occur from the standpoint of protecting privacy. Furthermore, since the purchaser must obtain the software by means of a certain card in which the user's ID number and the like are registered, the anonymity of the purchaser is exposed to discourage the volition of purchase.
In the case where the person who has installed the automatic vending device has control on the automatic vending device, the installer may conduct illegal sales of the copyrighted work such as software through the automatic vending device or falsify the number of sales. Thus, there was a problem that the proper copyright royalty fee may not be paid to the copyright holder.
In the case where a user purchases a copyrighted work such as software from the automatic vending device, time is required for the operation to write into a recording medium the electronic copyrighted work after selection thereof as well as the time required for the procedure for approval to purchase a copyrighted work. As a result, there was a problem that the automatic vending device was occupied by each purchaser for a rather long period of time.
This problem can be relatively alleviated by reducing the time of data writing into a recording medium and increasing the communication speed of the data used in the approval procedure. However, there is a limit in shortening the time required particularly in the case where data of a large amount of an electronic copyrighted work such as book data is to be written into a recording medium.
A possible approach to solve this problem is to increase the number of automatic vending devices according to the number of users. However, an automatic vending device dedicated to the sales of a copyrighted work is expensive and the area for installation thereof is also required. It is therefore desirable to correspond to many users with the minimum number of automatic vending devices.
In accordance with the development of the hardware of a terminal device such as a personal computer and the software, the publication of an electronic book which is one type of electronic copyrighted work has become more widespread. One can look up into a dictionary or read a story by means of a terminal device. Therefore, the terminal device must be capable of reproducing the electronic book for display on a display device. However, the display device includes various display attributes. There is the case where the contents of the electronic book cannot be displayed properly. For example, image data includes display attributes such as the resolution, the number of colors, the gradation tone, and the like. When the image data is to be displayed on a display device having another display attribute, the image data must be converted so as to conform to the display attribute of the display device through various methods such as resolution conversion (magnification, reduction), reducing number of colors, dithering process and the like. However, there is the disadvantage of degradation in the picture quality if the same process is applied on the entire region of the former image data.
The invention disclosed in Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 62-277855 is directed to solve this problem. The image processing apparatus disclosed in this Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 62-277855 alters the image processing method such as magnification, reduction, gradation tone conversion and the like according to the type of image in each region of the image. However, the operation becomes tedious when the image data is to be processed by the image processing apparatus since the user has to specify the region and select the image process. If these processes are to be automated, the type of image in each region of the image must be identified. However, this processing amount is so great that image processing will become time consuming in a portable terminal device or the like whose processing speed is low.
In the sales of the contents of an electronic book, the illegal copy of the contents of the electronic bibliography must be prevented from the standpoint of protecting the copyright. The invention disclosed in Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 5-122701 is known as the art related thereto. The charge account information processor disclosed in this Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 5-122701 includes a magneto-optical disk in which is stored a program or data required to decode the encoded series of information group or a series of information group with partially missing information transmitted through air or a predetermined transmission path, a magneto-optical disk drive device carrying out information recording or reproduction to or from the magneto-optical disk, and a personal computer demodulating the series of information group according to the program or data on the magneto-optical disk. The personal computer reproduces the program or data required to demodulate the series of information group from the magneto-optical disk, and demodulates the series of information group using the reproduced program or data. Accordingly, only certain users can utilize the series of information group transmitted towards a plurality of users.
When the distributor of the series of information group, for example the distributor of software, produces a magneto-optical disk for sales, the charge account of the software can be accommodated by including the usage fee of the software. However, the fee can be charged only on a medium (magneto-optical disk) basis. There was a problem that the royalty fee of each software could not be charged when a plurality of software are stored in a medium.
In view of the foregoing, a first object of the present invention is to provide an electronic copyrighted work sales apparatus that can administer the copyright royalty by an external source.
A second object is to provide an electronic copyrighted work sales apparatus capable of preventing illegal readout or removal of sales information.
A third object is to provide a copyright royalty fee management apparatus capable of administrating the copyright royalty fee for each copyright holder.
A fourth object is to provide an electronic copyrighted work distribution management system that can administer the copyright royalty fee of an electronic copyrighted work sold by an electronic copyrighted work sales apparatus, and prevent illegal sales of an electronic copyrighted work.
The fifth object is to provide an electronic copyrighted work sales apparatus selling contents of an electronic book that can be reproduced only through a particular electronic book display apparatus.
The sixth object is to provide an electronic book display apparatus capable of altering encoded contents that can be reproduced according to charge account status and the like.
The seventh object is to provide a key information management apparatus generating and transmitting as necessary auxiliary information that is required in reproducing the contents.
The eighth object is to provide an electronic copyrighted work distribution management system that allows a user to purchase and display an electronic book that can be reproduced only through a particular electronic book display apparatus.